Severe weather on 15 April and 19 April affords another opportunity to compare Significant Tornado Parameter predictions from a 4-km WRF simulation that includes information from Polar Hyperspectral Soundings and a 3-km HRRR simulation that does not. Consider the example, above, at 2200 and 2300 UTC on 15 April and 0000 and... Read More

Oklahoma City and surrounding areas were struck with severe weather last night, the night of Wednesday 2023-04-19. Nine tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma, making a total of 15 tornadoes from the storm system. Tornadoes were also reported in Nebraska and Iowa. This severe weather took the lives of three Oklahomans.... Read More

A strong cold front (surface analyses) was moving eastward from the southern Plains toward the lower Mississippi Valley on 15 April 2023 — GOES-16 (GOES-East) Total Precipitable Water and Lifted Index / Convective Available Potential Energy Derived Stability Indices (above) revealed a broad corridor of moisture and instability ahead of the cold front.1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 “Red” Visible... Read More

The recent bouts of severe weather (See this blog post about the 31 March outbreak, or this one about the 4 April outbreak) over the central United States mean an opportunity to compare Numerical Model output from models that are initialized with temperature/moisture profiles derived from Polar Hyperspectral Soundings (using both infrared and microwave data from CrIS/ATMS or IASI/AMSU/MHS) to models... Read More